Saraba, Yoki Hi - Vol. 8 Ch. 33.5

[lemberg]

This manga hit me really hard since I myself had a younger sister who would behave towards me as if she was the older sibling. We were close, but I really feel like, in retrospective, I have always cared less for her than she cared for me. There were lots of times where I was unnecessarily cruel or indifferent towards her, and I feel like I never really took too much interest in what she thought, but was instead caught up in my own sorrows and burdened her with having to put up with my whining. In reality, she was the person who understood me the most, having been around me all the time, raised under the same roof with all its problems. Life has always been a drag with all our hardships and honest negligence on part of our parents, but I feel like I really did make her life a little bit worse while it lasted.
She's been dead for four years now. At first I couldn't process it at all, it didn't really hit me. I hardly cried, even; I've been emotionally numb since. It is just now that I have started thinking about it all the time, about all the things I did wrong and what I'd do different if I could go back with all the things that I know now. I wish I could go back and ask her what things she liked and take interest in it, ask her what her aspirations were. Alas, to my knowledge there is no way to go back. I have lost something irrecoverable which I will never have back. Makes me feel really empty inside thinking about how I will never ever ever ever ever have her back, nor ever have any relationship that is even remotely similar to what I had with her with anyone else; it just is like that with siblings.

I relate on a deep level with a lot of the conflict in this manga. That being said, I must clarify that I did not like her like that, nor do I fantasize with what an hypothetical romantic relationship with her would've been like. I do not want to be misunderstood.

 

[cawfee33]

Well this manga was fun to read up until the whole misunderstanding. Even knowing that they’d end up together towards the end I just hated that we didn’t get more Aki and Kei moments. It was all drama, no room for relaxing moments. I feel like certain characters were introduced for the sole purpose of pushing the plot forward. Koutarou couldn’t mind his business, the author lady kissing Kei never made sense, and the mother’s sudden reappearance. I mean it felt so unnecessary and frustrating.

My biggest problem was the wasted time on characters that lead nowhere it seems. Gotsun is the main perp of this crime. I don’t mind unrequited love but so much of it led NOWHERE. He never confessed and just pushed Aki forward when needed. What changed in his character since the beginning other than realizing he liked Aki? It just didn’t feel necessary to have whole chapters dedicated to his Gotsuh where his poor kouhai is left irrelevant as well. I wish we got more out of his character.

Tamaki was my favorite girl in this manga. I enjoyed most of the scenes with her but I felt like it really wasn’t necessary. There wasn’t any payoff it feels like. I wanted to see her confront her Mom or address her past trauma from those boys but it never happened. She didn’t even start dating her senpai… It feels like so much more could’ve been done here as well.

If I am being honest, I really just wanted this story to focus on Keiichiro and Akira. I could’ve done without the rest of the cast. It is good to focus on side characters but here with so few chapters it felt like we got so little out of it. I much prefer Koi Kaze’s approach to this subject. Minimal focus on side characters but lots of focus on the two leads. I feel like the author could’ve done better with the side characters but maybe I am being too nitpicky.

I was also gonna write about how this manga was alright up until the misunderstanding arc, but you pretty much took the words right out of my mouth. The author not chickening out of incest is neat, but the path towards it was so frustrating to read that it didn't feel as satisfying as it should've been. Drama for the sake of drama, characters that only existed for the sake of creating drama.

I just felt tired by the end lol.